Backed by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Nurse Training Act for the creation of the Cadet Nurse Corps was passed unanimously by Congress in 1943 to address a shortage of nurses brought about by the Second World War. 

This poster from 1944 is a call to arms for the American Woman, urging her to join the newly created Corps, and do her bit for her country. The illustration is by Jon Whitcomb, an American illustrator well known for his depictions of glamorous young women.

To be accepted onto the program, the only requirements were to be between the ages of 17 and 35, to have graduated from high school with good grades and to be in good health. Once accepted, the women would receive a subsidized and accelerated nursing education if they agreed to serve under the U.S. Public Health Service for the duration of the war.

The new trainee nurses served in military and civilian hospitals on the home front, replacing the fully qualified nurses who had left to join the armed forces. The prospect was an appealing one, as the poster promises with its tagline “A girl with a future”, for it offered free education to women who may previously have not had such opportunities and lifetime employment which was not the case for those who took up jobs in factories and other male dominated fields.

As well as offering employment to women new to the nursing profession, the Act offered opportunities to already-established Nurses. Lucile Petry was appointed Director of the Division of Nurse Education making her the first woman ever to head a division of the Public Health Service.

The stylish, youthful and bright image presented by illustrator Whitcomb was exactly how the PHS wanted to portray the Nurse Cadets. It issued leaflets such as “Figuratively Speaking” which aimed to develop the Cadets into “the trimmest, smartest group of uniformed women to be seen today”. The uniform worn by the cadet nurses was used as part of the recruitment campaign. Wearing it was a sign of a woman’s commitment to the war effort and fashion editors were enlisted to choose the most attractive options. In the poster, the woman on the left wears a military-style uniform with blue jacket and cap whilst the woman on the right wears a white nurse’s uniform, the two outfits emphasizing the dual military and civilian aspects of the work.

Thanks in part to posters such as this one, the scheme was hugely successful and between the years of 1943 and 1948 124,065 nurses graduated from the scheme. Although this poster depicts two white American women, thanks to intervention by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt the Act prohibited racial discrimination and more than 3,000 women of minority race served as cadet nurses.

Surgeon General Thomas Parran testified before the House of Military Affairs in 1943: “By replacing graduate nurses who already have gone into the military, the US Cadet Nurse Corps has prevented a collapse of the nursing care in hospitals.” In addition to this, the work of the Nurse Cadets left a lasting legacy on the American Public Health service, introducing apprenticeship style training, helping to promote nurse training outside of the white population, and playing a part in more women attending University than ever before. 

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